


An Old Fashioned Festival

by Kayasurin



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Christmas of a sort, Gen, Post-End of the War, daemon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:18:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayasurin/pseuds/Kayasurin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Midwinter Festival of Lights is meant for family, and for Zuko that means Sokka, Katara, Toph, Aang, and their daemons.<br/>-Just meant to be a family friendly little fic. Daemon AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Old Fashioned Festival

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WiseAbsol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WiseAbsol/gifts).



"Hey, Zuko!" Sokka couldn't exactly go any faster, not without leaving Suana behind, which... no. There was no one and nothing that could keep up with his Daemon in the water, but on land it just felt wrong to get more than five feet away from her. "Zuko- hey, jerkbender!"

_That_ at least got the Fire Lord's attention. _And_ his majordomo's. Well, at least Whetu cracked up laughing. Zuko's Daemon had that guy's sense of humor.

All of it.

"What do you want, Sokka?" Zuko asked, dismissing the majordomo with a gesture. He waited a minute, as much to let Sokka and Suana get closer, as to wait for his majordomo to get further away. "Thanks for the interruption, by the way, he was trying to talk me into some kind of court gathering for the Festival, even though it's traditionally for family-"

"Yeah," Sokka said, interrupting. You had to interrupt with Zuko when he got started on this sort of thing. When he didn't close up and turn sullen with nerves, he babbled. "I wanted to ask you about that, actually. What is this festival thing?"

Zuko blinked, and then jerked his thumb to the side, at the half open door. "Step into my office."

Once the four of them were safely tucked away behind the closed door, the two Daemons relaxed and grinned at each other.

"So," Suana said, looking up at Zuko. "No one tells us anything."

"I thought you knew," he said. By now, of course, they were all used to talking to- even touching- each other's Daemons, even though that wasn't something done in any kind of society, except an abusive one. Aang had rubbed off on them, and Momo too.

Airbenders were weird, but they'd adjusted.

Zuko leaned against the edge of his desk. "Do the Water Tribes celebrate midwinter night?" he asked.

"I don't know about the Northern Tribe, but we don't down South. No way to tell. Four months of complete darkness, then another two where the sun barely gets above the horizon?" He snorted. "What's so special about this midwinter night?"

"Depends on who's doing the talking," Zuko admitted. "The Fire Sages like to say it's the night where Agni defeats the darkness for another year, there's plenty of songs and plays about how it's the night where Agni blessed the world with Firebending so that mortals could drive back the darkness, on and on... And the Earth Kingdom has their own customs, I'm sure."

"Fair enough," Suana said.

Whetu cleared her throat. "Generally speaking, midwinter night is celebrated, well, as the Festival of Lights," she said. "Families gather together to eat, drink, and be merry, stay up all night to see in the dawn, and exchange small gifts."

"We don't get much snow here," Zuko added, "but when it's been raining for two months straight and there's another three to go, it's nice to, well, celebrate."

Sokka nodded. Sounded a lot like the Tribe's days of darkness, only for a single night. "Okay. So, you invited us to spend time with you?" Because Zuko's family... Well, Azula still wasn't well, even though Zuko had high hopes for her recovery- although, considering how she'd acted _before_ her breakdown, Sokka wasn't sure a recovery would make her _like_ Zuko.

And the less said about Zuko's dad and mom, the better.

"Uncle's in the Earth Kingdom, with his tea shop," Zuko said, looking down to fondle Whetu's stubby ears. "And, well, you are my friends, and there's no one in court that I'd want to spend time with..."

"It's cool, man," Sokka said, and clapped him on the shoulder. "It'll be nice. Katara and I haven't done anything like this before, and I bet you sand dollars to rice balls that Aang hasn't either. And Toph doesn't want to see her family."

Which was, in fact, why they were still in the Fire Nation, even though the war was officially over. Officially, they were ambassadors to the Fire Nation, blah blah blah, boring meetings and boring dinners and boring people all around. Unofficially, well, no one wanted Toph to be kidnapped again. And the Fire Nation was strangely the safest place for her.

Especially the old palace, only two levels high, and all the floors made of flagstone or slate or porcupine tile... Toph loved it.

The new palace that Azulon had put up was still being dismantled. Zuko looked happy whenever he got a progress report.

Sokka kind of got the feeling the new palace had not been a happy, cheerful family home.

"Oh," Zuko said, as Sokka turned to leave. "Mom always had us celebrating in the old way, so I thought we'd do that."

"As long as there aren't any boring speeches," Sokka said.

"No. No speeches."

Perfect! Now to go find his sister and Aang, and make sure they weren't mistaking friendship for romantic love again...

* * *

The Fire Lord's private suite was surprisingly, well, _empty_ , Katara thought. She felt Snorri's agreement. Granted, this was the private sitting room, not the bedroom or Zuko's second study- and why he needed two studies no one had been able to explain properly yet- but still. There was a low table, several flat cushions for them to kneel on, a few low tables in the corners for lamps burning scented oils, and several paintings of landscapes on the walls. The generic tatami were just plain, woven mats, and looked like they belonged in a lower class of home, not the Fire Lord's personal suite.

It was very strange, considering the last time they'd been in the suite, not two days ago, the room had been- not filled- but there had been more furnishings. Chairs in the Earth Kingdom fashion instead of the highly Fire Nation cushions, stands with flower arrangements and ornaments, actual rugs instead of tatami...

"I did say I prefer celebrating in the old fashioned way," Zuko said, clearly picking up on their surprise at the state of the room. Whetu looked just as uncomfortable as he did. "That means nothing fancy, no servants..."

"Oh," Aang said. "I remember this! Kuzon told me about it!"

Zuko grinned. "Did you ever celebrate with him?"

Aang shook his head, and Momo sighed. "We wanted to," the Daemon explained. "But his parents said no."

"Well, come sit down, we'll eat and then... you'll see." Zuko smirked.

Katara ended up sitting next to Zuko, Whetu and Snorri comfortably reclining against each other, and across from Aang and Sokka. Toph had one of the short ends of the table all to herself, which seemed to be to her liking. Kun, currently a burrowing owl-cat, perched on her shoulder. Momo moved over to the other short end of the table, and Suana stretched out behind the two boys.

Zuko brought the food over to the table, as well as the plates and chopsticks. The food was...

Katara looked at the soup in dismay. They'd eaten better when traveling and with little money! The broth was barely cloudy, and didn't even have any scent! There were a few scraps of- were those rice shoots? And that had to be some kind of seaweed- floating in the broth, but it certainly wasn't anything Katara would call _food_.

"The Festival, the old fashioned kind, anyways, draws attention to the fact that nothing grows during the monsoon season," Zuko said. "Food stores can grow low. People can starve."

Quietly, they all drank their soup. Katara supposed a person could live off it, but not for long, and they certainly wouldn't thrive.

After the soup came a salad, made up of things a farming peasant would eat. Goose grass and cress, the peeled and sliced roots of cattails, dandiflower leaves... It actually tasted quite good, but there wasn't much of it.

"Tell me we'll have something better, later," Sokka said, poking at his salad as if it might bite him.

"In the morning," Zuko promised.

"Alright, I guess I can survive until then..."

The meal was very strange, considering they were in the _Fire Palace_. From the salad they moved to the fish, but the fish were all tiny little things Zuko called cat-sardines, and they didn't have any seasonings or sauces of any kind, though they weren't raw either. Suana wolfed down her share, but then she also ate cat-salmon and slime-worms, so that didn't mean anything.

On, and on they went, with scant portions- oh, no one was hungry, and by the end of the meal they were actually full, it was just...

"People live like this," Toph said, when Zuko cleared away the empty dishes.

"Yes," Zuko said. "A lot more than they used to, considering the war."

Katara shivered.

"Now," Whetu said, and stood up. "Let's go out onto the courtyard. Don't worry, the awning has been put up, we won't get soaked."

So it proved. Zuko shut the door behind them, and then doused the lanterns, leaving them in the near darkness of the night. Rain poured down, a deluge that could drown a man if he wasn't careful.

"It's almost midnight?" Aang said, or asked.

"Right. Speaking of... here, Sokka."

"Flint and steel?" Kun asked.

"Firebenders aren't allowed to light the fire, during the Festival."

So they sat there, in the dark, in what was probably, for the Fire Nation, the cold, and waited. When Zuko said, Sokka lit the tinder kept nice and dry in a fire pot, and then Zuko taught them a quiet little song as they all lit candles from the fire pot, and then planted them in dishes of dirt.

"And now, we just have to stay awake until dawn," Zuko said.

"And breakfast," Sokka added.

Suana clapped her flippers. "Here, here!"

And in the darkness, the candles flickered and glowed.

**Author's Note:**

> So, WiseAbsol, I know you asked for Katara and Zuko, but it went for family gen instead. I hope you enjoy it anyways!


End file.
